The Category5.TV Newsroom

Here are the stories we're following for the week of Tuesday March 17, 2015

Wheels designed to take a car to a top speed of 1,000mph are being manufactured.

The process of machining the fastest wheels in automotive history has begun.

The process of machining the fastest wheels in automotive history has begun.

The aluminium discs will be fitted to the Bloodhound Supersonic Car, which will endeavour to break the world land speed record later this year. That record currently stands at 763mph.

Castle Engineering near Glasgow is leading the industrial consortium that is preparing the wheels.

These 90cm discs are a crucial element of the Bloodhound concept, and will have to endure huge loads as they spin at over 170 revolutions per second.

Calculations indicate that at peak speed, the wheels will be generating 50,000 radial g at their rim. That's 50,000 times the pull of gravity.

There are parts of this car where if there is a problem, the driver Andy Green can simply shut them off and bring the vehicle to a stop. But if there is a problem with a wheel, Andy is going to crash... which is never a good idea at close to 1,000mph.

Bloodhound has to use solid wheels to make its record runs. A rubber tyre would be ripped to shreds instantly.

Once machined, the discs will go for balancing. Unlike with a standard car wheel, this does not involve adding lead weights to the rim. Instead, further precision measurements will identify any unevenness and a sliver of metal will be removed to hone what is already a state of near-perfection.

The market value of each wheel is about a quarter of a million pounds... a little over 370,000 US Dollars.

Source: www.bbc.com

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash

A fix that breaks everything has once again been issued by Microsoft, and affects mainly users who dual-boot their Windows system.

A twice-issued Microsoft Windows 7 patch is still causing pain for users, with some claiming the fix is triggering continuous reboots.

Reports are emerging that a twice-issued Microsoft Windows 7 patch is still causing pain for users, with some claiming the fix is triggering continuous reboots.

The patch was first issued as KB2949927 and withdrawn in October due to system faults, before being re-released this week as KB3033929.

Sporadic reports across internet forums suggest the patch is causing pain on Windows systems, especially PCs that boot into two or more operating systems.

Redmond's initial hope was that the patch would bring SHA-2 code signing support for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 users whose operating systems did not previously include that functionality.

It seems sensible to avoid the update until Microsoft confirms the problem and provides a fix... for the fix.

Source: www.theregister.co.uk

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash

Imagine if the mistake of a single ISP could accidentally take down Google for the entire world. They can, and they did.

For a short time Thursday, people all over the world trying to access Google services were cut off because of a "routing leak" from an Indian broadband Internet provider.

For a short time Thursday, people all over the world trying to access Google services were cut off because of what Dyn Research Director of Internet Analysis Doug Madory identified as a "routing leak" from an Indian broadband Internet provider. The leak is similar to a 2012 incident caused by an Indonesian ISP, which took Google offline for 30 minutes worldwide.

Routing leaks occur when a network provider broadcasts all or part of its internal routing table to one or more peered networks via the Border Gateway Protocol, causing network traffic to be routed incorrectly. In this case, the Indian ISP's router incorrectly announced routing data for over 300 network prefixes belonging to Google. These routes were then sent out to the rest of the world, and a number of ISPs accepted these routes.

The ISP, Hathway, had its own routes to Google because the company provides better speed to Google's cloud for its users, directing traffic to the closest Google data centers. That peering is a private network connection only available to users connected to their network. As a result, when the routing table was accidentally broadcast to the world instead of just to Hathway's customers, much of the world was trying to access Google via Mumbai, through Hathway, instead of over the public Internet.

Source: arstechnica.com

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash

Huge gaming news for Nintendo fans.

You'll never guess which gaming company is launching into the smartphone gaming industry.

Nintendo has finally succumbed to the market, and is collaborating with Japanese developer DeNA to create new games for smartphones.

The gaming giant said that existing games built for other Nintendo platforms like the Wii U and 3DS will not be transferred, however all of Nintendo's intellectual property will be "eligible for development".

This could mean new games on the horizon featuring characters such as Super Mario, Zelda and Pokemon.

The two firms also announced plans to launch an online membership service this fall which will give members access to their accounts across multiple platforms, including smartphones and PCs.

Source: www.bbc.com

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash

Carbon3D is pushing innovation in 3D printing with the demonstration of their game-changing process which prints items in 10 minutes that would normally take 10 hours.

A 3D printing process based on Terminator 2 has been demonstrated at the Ted conference, and it's definitely not science fiction.

A 3D printing process that harnesses light and oxygen has been demonstrated at the Ted conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Carbon3D said its "game-changing" process could make objects such as car parts, medical devices or shoes.

The technique was inspired by Terminator 2, in which the T-1000 robot rises from a pool of metallic liquid.


James Woodcock, group editor for TCT Magazine said, "It's not unusual for huge claims like this to be made, but as it's renowned experts working on it, it gives it some gravitas."

During their presentation, the Carbon3D machine produced a plastic ball from a pool of resin in just 10 minutes.

Prof Joseph DeSimone told the audience it would traditionally take up to 10 hours to print the same thing.

If anything, the demonstration showed the need for companies in the industry to continually work on developing and improving 3D printing technology.

Source: www.bbc.com

Sent to us by: Roy W. Nash